Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?

The war in Afghanistan, also known by the upbeat, patriotic moniker Operation Enduring Freedom, has officially been going on for over a decade now.

Obama gave a speech back in 2009 declaring that our troops would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan before his presidential term was up, one more promise on the never ending list of them he has failed to keep. In 2010, the Afghan war overtook the Vietnam war to officially become the longest war in U.S. history. The government and its propaganda machine otherwise known as the mainstream media spent countless hours the following year apprising us of the fact that Osama bin Laden, the supposed architect of the 9/11 fable that was blamed for landing our troops in Afghanistan to begin with, was taken out (with zero proof). This is regardless of the fact that the CIA gave bin Laden a $3 billion investment which funded him and created his Al Qaeda terrorist network, and plans have surfaced confirming the war in Afghanistan was planned long before 9/11 even happened.

Earlier this year, the Obama camp quietly announced the War on Terror — something that has been used to murder our republic, take apart our constitution and repeatedly suck away our rights like a vacuum ever since George W. Bush declared it — is now officially over. The announcement was delivered with all the fervent emotion of someone half-asleep describing paint dry. Even as NATO claims they plan to begin planning to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Army recently announced they are deploying nearly 10,000 more troops to the country starting this fall and continuing through next spring.

A letter from an Army Colonel addressed to the Secretary of the Army surfaced revealing the fact that when soldiers arrive in Afghanistan, they are told they are “fighting for the Afghan people.”

Most young men and women join our nation’s military with a heartfelt ambition to protect America and serve their fellow citizens. After all, the department which oversees our armed forces is named the “Department of Defense,” not the Department of Offense. However, let’s review the Army’s official mission:

“The Army’s mission is to fight and win our Nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders.”

Notice it says the purpose is straight up “to fight and win our nation’s wars” regardless of constitutionality or cause, followed by the word “dominance” without any mention of defensive measures.

American troops are dying in Afghanistan every day. The number of dead and wounded is only increasing. Our media completely ignores the fact that more American soldiers have now died under Nobel Peace Prize President Obama in his four years in office than in all eight years of Bush Jr.’s presidency. In fact, soldier deaths are up over 400 percent, wounded numbers are up 1200 percent, and soldier suicide rates are unprecedented under Obama in this somehow-suddenly-over-yet-never-ending War on Terror.

As an American, nothing about this makes me feel any safer from terrorists.

Opium and the Drug Trade

Our soldiers aren’t only told to protect the Afghan people when they arrive, they are also told they have to protect Afghanistan’s opium trade. The Taliban, whom we are supposedly fighting in Afghanistan, actually put a ban on the Afghani opium trade, collapsing 90 percent of it; America swooped in to protect and restore it through support of the Northern Alliance.

“We are tolerating the cultivation of the opium because we know that if we were to destroy it now, the population would turn against the marines and it would be a real security risk,” Geraldo says before turning to a Lieutenant Colonel who then admits America provides Afghanistani people security and resources to continue growing opium.

Well at least Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai was gracious enough to thank Obama for all our money to help do so:

“I’m bringing to you and to the people of the United States the gratitude of the Afghan people for the support that your taxpayers’ money has provided Afghanistan over the past decade and for the difference that it has made to the well-being of the Afghan people,” Karzai told the president at this year’s NATO Summit in Chicago.

The Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics has also stated publicly that NATO is taxing opium production in Afghani regions it controls. The drugs these poppy fields produce are being protected and paid for with our taxpayer money and our soldiers’ lives every day, but if an American attempts to secure said drugs for recreational use and is caught with them here, he or she will get arrested and thrown in prison.

It is a widely held contention that Pat Tillman, the famous football star turned soldier, was murdered because he threatened to go public with this lucrative poppy protection operation and expose Operation Enduring Freedom for what it really is.

Lithium and Rare Earth Minerals

Our mainstream media has dubbed Afghanistan as “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” in reference to a coveted element in rising demand ever since World War II. Lithium is used in everything from batteries and electronic components, to nuclear fusion processes, to alloys and military applications. The mainstream media cranked up the spin cycle on the U.S.’s pointless occupation of Afghanistan another notch in 2010 when a story in the New York Times claimed we had suddenly discovered $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits there. This timely announcement came just as Congress was debating another $33 billion supplemental war bill. Pointing to a Pentagon memo, the story also asserted the country was just found to be filled with huge veins of untouched copper, iron, cobalt, and gold.

It wasn’t long, though, before retired U.S. officials were coming forward to remind everyone of the fact that these “newly discovered” deposits had been well known to not only the U.S. but the UN, Russia and the World Bank as far back as the 1970s, maybe longer. The truth is inconsequential when propaganda sells the day.

Pipelineistan

As mentioned earlier, a war in Afghanistan was planned well before 9/11 ever happened. The U.S. had important plans for the country, plans that involved isolating Iran and bypassing Russia to run an oil pipeline right through Afghanistan that our government could control to bring out Central Asian oil more easily and cheaply down through the Pakistan coast. To this end, U.S. officials delivered the Taliban an ultimatum: they could either “accept the offer of a carpet of gold or be buried under a carpet of bombs,” depending on whether or not they stepped and fetched.

The threat of terrorism? What does that matter when there’s such a financial and political treasure to loot.

The rest of what the mainstream media sells us is just more bread and circuses off the usual menu. A U.S. Security Adviser has gone on record that our government plans to continue using our soldiers to “defend” Afghanistan until 2024. Nothing will change if Mitt Romney wins the election either, considering just weeks ago during a foreign policy speech Romney vowed to continue spending taxpayer money to arm Al-Qaeda in Syria as well.

The globe has truly been reduced to one giant game of Risk.

One last question: would anyone still enlist in the U.S. military today if they were told they were fighting for the United States of Empire that was once the United States of America?